One in every eleven persons born in Mexico has gone to the U.S. The National Review reported that in 2014 $1.87 billion was spent on incarcerating illegal immigrant criminals….Now add hundreds of billions for welfare and remittances! MICHAEL BARGO, Jr…… for the AMERICAN THINKER.COM

With less than two months to go before the Nov. 6 election, the
Obama administration has approved applications from 29 illegal immigrants
hoping to avoid deportation and get a work permit, the Department of Homeland
Security said Friday.

Spokesman Peter Boogaard said that as of Friday, U.S. Immigration
and Citizenship Services had received about 82,000 applications from illegal
immigrants hoping to qualify for the administration's Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals program. The first immigrants to win the reprieve were
notified this week. They will be allowed to stay in the United States for up to
two years and be given permission to work; applications can be renewed every
two years.

USCIS started accepting applications for the program on Aug. 15.
The first approvals came well ahead of the department's own internal estimates
that it could take four to six months for an application, including
fingerprints and a background check, to be fully reviewed.

Republican
lawmakers have decried Obama's policy, saying it is tantamount to "backdoor
amnesty" for as many as 1.7 million illegal immigrants.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., earlier this week questioned the
timing of the first wave of approvals.

"The speed at which
the deferrals are being granted continues to raise severe concerns about fraud
and the administration's ability to verify items like age of entry, educational
status and even current age," Sessions said.

President Obama and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the
program in June. To be eligible, applicants have to prove that they arrived in
the United State before they turned 16, are 30 years old or younger, be high
school graduates or in school, or have served in the military. They also cannot
have a serious criminal record or otherwise pose a threat to public safety or
national security.

The program closely tracks with the failed DREAM Act, a bill would
have provided a path to legal status for many young illegal immigrants. The new
policy does not provide legal status for the immigrants, but does protect them
from deportation for two years.

“…and was denounced by several Republicans as evidence that the
Obama administration was weakening enforcement and making it easier for illegal
immigrants to remain in the country.”

*

HISPANDERING:

“The memo encourages ICE officers and lawyers to use their
authority to dismiss those cases, canceling the deportation proceedings, if
they determine that the immigrants have no criminal records and stand a strong
chance of having their residence applications approved.”

*

Rep. Barletta Seeks Answers
from Attorney General over Backdoor Amnesty

Freshman
Congressman Lou Barletta (R-PA) sent U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder a letter
last Friday demanding answers regarding the Administration's use of
prosecutorial discretion to grant backdoor amnesty to certain illegal aliens up
to the age of thirty. This policy was announced in Secretary Napolitano's
June 15 memorandum ordering Department of Homeland Security personnel to grant
deferred action to illegal aliens meeting criteria similar to that of the
failed DREAM Act.

In his
letter to the Attorney General, Rep. Barletta charged the Administration with
usurping Congressional authority. Noting that Congress had repeatedly rejected
the DREAM Act, Rep. Barletta wrote, "[W]hen similar measures that would
implement these same policies were presented to Congress, Congress rejected
them. The implementation of the new immigration policy that is contrary to the
expressed will of the Congress violates the Constitution."

Rep. Barletta also asked Attorney General Holder whether
he believed Secretary Napolitano's memorandum was constitutional. "As the
most senior lawyer in our country, I would like to know your opinion about the
constitutionality of Secretary Napolitano's actions." Barletta inquired.
Holder's Justice Department has yet to comment on the Administration's use of
prosecutorial discretion to grant deferred action to broad categories of illegal
aliens.Stay tuned to FAIR for more details...

CECILIA MUNOZ
IS ONE OF OBAMA’S MANY LA RAZA SUPREMACIST OPERATING OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE. NO
ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY HAS BEEN SO INFESTED WITH A FOREIGN BASED POLITICAL
PARTY AS OBAMA’S.

THE FASTEST
GROWING POLITICAL PARTY IN AMERICAN IS THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA –
THE PARTY of ILLEGALS AND MEXICAN SUPREMACY. THEIR GOAL IS OBAMA AMNESTY OR
CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT, NO E-VERIFY, OPEN BORDERS AND DE FACTO CITIZENSHIPS
WITH DRIVERS’ LICENSES!

On Thursday, Director of
Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz blogged that the Department of Homeland
Security will review its entire deportation caseload - that's 300,000 cases -
to "clear out low priority" cases and "make more room to deport
people who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk."

*

FAIRUS.org- get on their
e-news!

President
Obama’s Record of Dismantling Immigration Enforcement

President Obama’s Record of
Dismantling Immigration Enforcement

President
Barack Obama came to office in 2009 and pledged that during his first year of
office he would enact amnesty legislation for illegal aliens living in the
United States. That, of course, did not happen — not because of any lack of
ideological commitment on the part of the President, but because of pragmatic
considerations. Only two years earlier, President Obama, then Senator Obama,
watched as President George W. Bush tried to toss the American people into the
boiling cauldron of comprehensive amnesty in 2007. It didn't work. Voters
angrily crashed the Capitol switchboard on the day the Senate was set to vote
and as a result, fourteen Democrats joined thirty-nine Republicans to vote down
the amnesty legislation.1 The President concluded, correctly, that there
just is not an appetite in Congress for another politically bruising fight over
comprehensive amnesty.

Understanding
that Members of Congress ultimately would not ignore the unequivocal objections
of their constituents to amnesty, the Obama Administration opted to adopt a
strategy of dismantling immigration enforcement in order to achieve the same
ends. The Administration hoped that while the American people were
focused on unemployment, crashing real estate values, banking scandals, health
care reform, foreign policy crises, and countless other issues, they would not
notice just what was actually taking place.

This
report details how the Obama Administration has carried out a policy of de
facto amnesty for millions of illegal aliens through executive policy
decisions. Since 2009, the Obama Administration has systematically gutted
effective immigration enforcement policies, moved aggressively against state
and local governments that attempt to enforce immigration laws, and stretched
the concept of "prosecutorial discretion" to a point where it has
rendered many immigration laws meaningless. Remarkably, the Administration has
succeeded in doing all this with barely a peep of protest from Congress.

Thus,
despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution grants Congress plenary authority
over immigration policy, the Executive Branch is now making immigration policy
unconstrained by constitutional checks and balances. This report
chronologically highlights the process that has unfolded over the past three
and half years. A review of the Obama Administration's record shows:

·The Administration's
conscious effort to end policies that effectively enforce and deter illegal
immigration. This includes the cessation of meaningful worksite enforcement
against employers who hire illegal aliens and the removal of the illegal
workers. It also includes ending effective partnership programs with state and
local governments, such as the 287(g) program, that provide a structure through
which state and local agencies may enforce immigration laws.

·The Administration's
intimidation of state and local governments determined to enforce federal
immigration laws. President Obama has turned the Department of Justice into the
Administration's attack dog, filing lawsuits against states that pass their own
immigration enforcement laws. When lawsuits fail, the Department's Civil Rights
division launches meritless investigations designed to harass local governments
and officials who attempt to enforce the law.

·The Administration's
dependence on illegal alien advocates to make U.S. immigration policy for the
Executive Branch. President Obama has placed strident amnesty advocates in key
positions throughout his Administration. These appointees have worked openly
with advocacy groups to shape a series of policies that amount to backdoor
amnesty.

·Outright deception on the
part of the Administration designed to convince the American public that
immigration laws are being vigorously enforced. The Obama Administration
repeatedly engages in efforts to inflate its record of deporting illegal
aliens. These deceptive practices include the release of data that is later
exposed to be inaccurate. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security
carefully select data to claim that our "borders are more secure than
ever," even as violence along the southern border escalates to alarming
proportions.

The Obama
Administration's strategy is to count on the fact that the public and the media
will not take notice of each individual and incremental step they are taking to
undermine immigration enforcement and grant de facto amnesty to as many illegal
aliens as possible. This report exposes the strategy and the policy objectives
behind it.

President
Obama is in a pickle. Immigration enforcement actually is working - or,
at least, it was working.

Under the
Obama administration, the government has removed almost 400,000 illegal
immigrants annually. That's 4 percent of the 10 million illegal immigrants
estimated to be living in America - and it sends a warning to those thinking of
illegally entering the United States.

Thanks to
the Secure Communities program, which requires local law enforcement to share
arrestees' fingerprints with Washington, about half of those deported have
criminal records. According to the administration, the vast majority of the
rest either re-crossed the border after deportation or were recently caught.

So what
did the White House announce last week? On
Thursday, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz blogged that the
Department of Homeland Security will review its entire deportation caseload -
that's 300,000 cases - to "clear out low priority" cases and
"make more room to deport people who have been convicted of crimes or pose
a security risk."

Sen. Dick
Durbin, D-Ill., told the New York Times that the policy would protect youths
with clean criminal records whose parents brought them into the country when
they were minors. That is, he likened the Obama policy to his proposed
legislation, the Dream (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors)
Act.

Actually,
the Obama policy goes much further than shielding minors. Under the guise of
"prosecutorial discretion," a Department of Homeland Security memo
advises officials to consider a number of "positive factors" before
prosecuting offenders. "Positive factors" include military service,
"long-time lawful permanent" residency, "minors and elderly
individuals," nursing, pregnant and disabled.

On the
one hand, the policy seems smart - let the government concentrate on deporting
threats to public safety.

On the
other hand, the White House essentially has announced that individuals who
break federal immigration law are a "low priority" and unlikely to
face legal consequences. So much for deterrence.

Worse,
the new policy will allow individuals who have been caught up in a Secure
Communities' review to apply for work permits. Mark Krikorian, executive
director of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies, said that the
new policy makes getting arrested equivalent to winning the lottery:
"Their fellow illegal aliens who were not arrested don't get work
authorization."

Krikorian
calls the new policy "administrative amnesty." Obama failed to
persuade Congress to change the law. Now with the 2012 presidential election
looming, he changed policies implemented in the Clinton and George W. Bush
years by fiat.

Bush's
Secure Communities program enabled Obama to boast that his administration
delivered the greatest number of illegal immigrant removals ever - 395,165 - in
Fiscal Year 2009. In 2010, the number fell. Last month, he told the National
Council of La Raza, "Here's the only thing you should know. The Democrats
and your president are with you."

Keeping its promise to suspend deportations for a broad
class of illegal immigrants, the Obama Administration has officially started
the process that’s expected to spare tens of thousands from removal in the
coming months.

Among the first illegal aliens to benefit from the
president’s backdoor amnesty plan is a Mexican man living in Florida. He got
busted a few years ago after applying for a work permit and was earmarked for
deportation. Earlier this month local media portrayed the man, Manuel Guerra,
as a desperate undocumented
worker
trying to build a new life after fleeing violent street gangs in his native
Mexico.

This week the 27-year-old, who has lived in the U.S.
illegally for more than a decade, became the poster child for Obama’s newly
implemented amnesty program. Federal immigration authorities officially suspended his
deportation,
according a mainstream newspaper report that says Guerra had been caught in a
“tortuous and seemingly failing five-year court fight against deportation.”

Guerra was spared after a working group from the departments
of Homeland Security and Justice met to start reviewing 300,000 deportation
cases pending before immigration courts nationwide. Under Obama’s new plan,
authorities will have wide discretion to
halt deportations and will be encouraged to do so in cases where illegal
immigrants attend school, have family in the military or are primary bread
winners.

The stealth amnesty plan was first introduced last year in
case Congress doesn’t pass legislation to legalize the nation’s 12 million
undocumented immigrants. Earlier this year political appointees at U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), actually issued a directive to
enact “meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action.” The plan
includes delaying deportation indefinitely (“deferred action”), granting green
cards, allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. indefinitely while
they seek legal status (known as “parole in place”) and expanding the
definition of “extreme hardships” so any illegal alien could meet the criteria
and remain in the country.

This goes hand in hand with the president’s new blueprint
for immigration reform, which was recently issued by the White House. Titled “Building A 21st
Century Immigration System,” the plan strives to strengthen the U.S. economy and
“competitiveness” by creating a legal immigration system that reflects the
nation’s “values and diverse needs.” After all, it claims that the
“overwhelming majority” of people living in the U.S. with “no legal status” are
“simply seeking a better life for themselves and their children.”

The president’s new plan, which has already allocated $8
million to community groups that operate immigrant “integrational programs,”
also expands “anti discrimination provisions of immigration law” and provides
more “comprehensive anti-retaliation protections.”

NCLR
Funding Skyrockets After Obama Hires Its VP
06/17/2011
A Judicial Watch investigation reveals that federal funding for a Mexican La
Raza group that for years has raked in millions of taxpayer dollars has
skyrocketed since one of its top officials got a job in the Obama White House.

“Behind the thin rhetoric about reigniting a
“thriving middle class,” Obama made clear that the administration’s policies in
its second term will be subordinated entirely to the interests of big business,
beginning with plans to slash hundreds of billions more from health care
programs.”

ARE OBAMA’S CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS DOIN’ WELL??? YOU BET!
THAT’S BECAUSE THEY INVESTED SO MUCH IN BARACK OBAMA.

NO ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN SO INFESTED WITH
BANKSTER-CONNECTED CRIMINALS THAN OBAMA’S! IN FACT YOU MUST BE A BANKSTER OR LA
RAZA SUPREMACIST TO BE PART OF OBAMA’S CULTURE OF CORRUPTION.

OBAMA’S BANKSTER LOOTERS:

According to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
City, nearly $6 trillion in property value has simply been erased due to the
mortgage crisis.

Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is
Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and
Union Bosses

BY
TIMOTHY P CARNEY

Editorial
Reviews

Obama Is
Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the
same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are
profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers,
small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter
Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White
House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering
corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate
America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.

Banks post near-record
earnings as sequester looms

By Vicki Needham - 02/26/13 03:46 PM ET

U.S. banks reported near-record earnings
last year, the best performance since before the financial crisis crippled the
economy in 2008.

Banks posted $141.3
billion in total earnings, a 19.3 percent improvement over 2011 and the
second-highest level ever reported by the industry since the $145.2 billion
earned in 2006, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) reported on Tuesday.

Despite the improvement,
the American Bankers Association (ABA) argues that banks will feel the pressure
if economic growth is slowed by $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that are
set to go into effect on Friday.

"All businesses,
including banks, will suffer if the economy slows dramatically because of
sequestration," said James Chessen, ABA's chief economist.

"It will increase
uncertainty, making businesses more reluctant to borrow and consumers more
reluctant to spend."

FDIC Chairman Martin
Gruenberg said the nation's slow but steady economic recovery has been a
contributing factor to the industry's rebound during the past three years and
the sequester could certainly hamper that improvement.

"We're watching it
closely," Gruenberg said at a press conference Tuesday.

Because the pace of
earnings growth is not likely to continue at this level, Gruenberg said and
banks will depend on increased credit by the industry because "troubled
loans, problem banks and bank failures remain at elevated levels, while growth
in lending and revenue remains sluggish.”

Total loan balances rose
$118.2 billion, or 1.6 percent, in the quarter, led by 3.7 percent growth in
commercial loans, according to the FDIC.

“There’s not a lot of
great opportunities out there at these rates,” Chessen said.

Banks posted a 12 percent growth in
year-over-year business lending, and will need to similarly increase consumer
lending to bolster revenues, especially if a sequester goes into effect and
stymies economic growth.

Chessen said that
"even more promising is the broad-based increase in most loan categories,
with real estate and auto loans continuing to rise as consumers become more
confident in their finances."

In fact, the 18.2
percent year-over-year improvement in noninterest income was driven primarily
by higher gains on loan sales, increased trading revenue and reduced losses on
sales of foreclosed property.

"Whether businesses
continue to seek loans will largely depend on whether there is greater policy
certainty surrounding taxes, healthcare costs and government regulations,"
he said.

Fourth-quarter net
income was $34.7 billion, 36.9 percent better than the $25.3 billion in
profits the industry reported in the same period in 2011, and it was the
highest total for a fourth quarter since 2006.

The total for the
three-month period that ended Dec. 31 was a decline from $37.6 billion in the
third quarter, the FDIC said.

While Chessen said that
"it’s not unusual to see fourth quarter earnings come in below previous
quarters, the real story is the 37 percent year-over-year gains, which is
a significant uptick in a challenging economic environment."

SOME ONE HAS TO PAY FOR THE CRIMES OF OBAMA’S CRIMINAL
BANKSTER DONORS. OBAMA HAS PUBLICALLY ADMITTED THE WOULD NEVER PROSECUTE ANY
BANKSTERS.

HE HAS NOT PUBLICALLY CONCEDED THE TRUTH TO THE FACT THAT
OBAMA IS SABOTAGING THE AMERICAN BORDERS WITH MEXICO, SABOTAGING E-VERIFY AND
PROMISING HIS LA RAZA PARTY BASE NON-ENFORCEMENT TO EASE MORE “CHEAP” LABOR
ILLEGALS INTO OUR JOBS!

THEN THE AMERICA MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE TAX BILLS FOR MEXICO’S
LOOTING of AMERICA AS WELL AS OBAMA’S BANKSTERS’ ECONOMIC RAPE OF THIS NATION.

MEANWHILE… OBAMA HAS WORKED HARD FOR ILLEGALS AND THE 1%
BILLIONAIRE CLASS HE SO CLOSELY IDENTIFIES WITH.

Since
the onset of the recession, the level of individuals above age 50 and out of
work has more than doubled, with the average unemployment period skyrocketing
to over 17 months. The percentage of individuals able to return to work at
equal or higher wages since being laid off is in the single-digits. The film
calculates that roughly one-in-five individuals over the age of 50 currently
remains out of work in the US.

MEANWHILE… OBAMA HAS WORKED HARD FOR ILLEGALS AND THE 1%
BILLIONAIRE CLASS HE SO CLOSELY IDENTIFIES WITH.

A
theme visited throughout the documentary is the issue of home mortgages. The
film provides statistics showing that since 2007 nearly 5 million homes have
been lost to foreclosure, with market analysts expecting between 3 million and
8 million more to come in the ensuing period. According
to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York City, nearly $6 trillion in
property value has simply been erased due to the mortgage crisis. The
film is dotted with scenes of abandoned neighborhoods and homes, some with
signs hanging outside looking to sell for as cheaply as $350.

In
this, one sees the director pulling her punches at just the point where she
should begin exploring. Sipprelle herself admits that due to budget cuts
enacted under the administration of President Obama, many of the federal and
state programs upon which these workers rely are now being phased out. The
reality is that both political parties at federal, state and municipal levels
of government are pursuing austerity policies and are responsible for the
deepening social misery being inflicted on the working class as a whole.

*

wsws.org

Published by the International Committee
of the Fourth International (ICFI)

Set for Life: The effects of recession on an older generation

By Nick Barrickman
27 February 2013

Set for Life, a documentary by directors Susan
Sipprelle and Samuel Newman, focuses on the effects that the economic crisis of
2007-2008 has had on the generation of Americans 50 years and older. The film
is compiled from dozens of interviews obtained across the country, often gotten
on the spot at unemployment offices. These videos are stored for viewing at the
multimedia web site www.overfiftyandoutofwork.com. Set for Life
has won multiple awards since first appearing in January at the New Jersey Film
Festival and is currently being screened in limited viewings around the
country.

The documentary focuses mainly on the lives of three
workers, selected probably to represent various sectors of the economy, from
private and public sector “blue-collar” workers to an information technology
specialist, all trying to survive after having lost their jobs during the
collapse of the US economy in 2007-2008.

The film is interspersed with images of family videos from
an earlier period, picturing the happier times that existed in American society
at this time, contrasted with up-to-date shots of idled factories in the
American heartland. One individual describes the “feeling of calm” he
experienced in his younger years, believing that working for AT&T was a
guaranteed ticket to a secure life, “like having a government job,” he says.
This is contrasted with a clip of a woman saying that even the “most loyal,
paternalistic companies are not like that anymore,” recalling the cold and
impersonal way in which she and many others have been laid off.

The film shows Joe Price, a third generation steel worker
from Weirton, West Virginia. Particularly proud of his 30-plus-year career, Joe
at one point revisits his long-idled former job site, holding up a steel rod
while asking the camera, “What is wrong with a man making a living by working
with his hands?” The scene captures the feeling of loss many have experienced.
Now, Joe and many others like him face the prospect of searching for work from
employers who view older age as a detriment to hiring.

In this, the film delivers some of its most striking
moments, as one gets a sense that the vast shift in society has left a
substantial portion of the population simply unable to cope in today’s economic
situation. Many interviewees recall the dreadful experience of putting out
hundreds of resumes to receive no reply from job providers. Holding onto the
hope of achieving the “American dream,” many of the workers evince a sense of
determination to get back on their feet, though many have given up on the
prospect of ever retiring.

The tragedy of George Ross, Jr., an IT worker fallen victim
to California’s misfortune, is compounded when he is informed that his son, a
Marine, has been left crippled by an improvised explosive device while serving
in Afghanistan. Owing nearly $200,000 on a mortgage he had refinanced before losing
his job in 2008, George is forced to put his job search on hold in order to
care for his son.

In one scene, George and his wife Linda attend a
debt-consolidation workshop while driving a Wounded Warrior charity van
in hopes of persuading the hosting firm to take up their case. The attempt
fails. Linda, in tears while speaking to the camera, says that to her, the
“American dream” has been simply “erased.” In these scenes, one can’t help but
note a parallel between the condition of the Ross’s war-damaged son and the
images of the once-great industrial heartland, now an idled and rusting shell
of its former self.

Somewhat scant, statistically speaking, the film relies
heavily on the anecdotal experiences of its subjects. Those figures it does
provide, however, are staggering.

Since the onset of the recession, the level of individuals
above age 50 and out of work has more than doubled, with the average
unemployment period skyrocketing to over 17 months. The percentage of
individuals able to return to work at equal or higher wages since being laid
off is in the single-digits. The film calculates that roughly one-in-five
individuals over the age of 50 currently remains out of work in the US.

A theme visited throughout the documentary is the issue of
home mortgages. The film provides statistics showing that since 2007 nearly 5
million homes have been lost to foreclosure, with market analysts expecting
between 3 million and 8 million more to come in the ensuing period. According
to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York City, nearly $6 trillion in
property value has simply been erased due to the mortgage crisis. The film is
dotted with scenes of abandoned neighborhoods and homes, some with signs
hanging outside looking to sell for as cheaply as $350.

One former GM employee, Stan Bednarczyk, informs the
interviewer of his incurring a $40,000 loss on a home due to having to relocate
from Ohio to Michigan, only to later wind up with a mortgage that was nearly $150,000
underwater in Detroit. Including the total taxes owed between the two homes,
Bednarczyk informs the audience that it cost him nearly $400,000 simply to
break even, “and there’s no write-off in our income system for that,” he adds.

The film concentrates on age, dedicating a certain amount of
its time to the idea of “agism,” in which workers feel they are being
discriminated against strictly on that basis. This is perhaps due to the
director’s own perceptions, as Sipprelle, a baby-boomer herself who sought to
switch careers in mid-life, felt this issue in particular needed covering. The
result is somewhat narrow, tending to fuel the filmmakers’ perception that the
“Great Recession” is simply a generational issue.

Other limitations emerge. In a Q&A session at the
Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC, Sipprelle, when questioned about
the film’s general lack of a political focus, expressed her preference to see
political divisions “left out” of the documentary, wanting to obtain the
“widest appeal possible” because the issue was so pressing.

In this, one sees the director pulling her punches at just
the point where she should begin exploring. Sipprelle herself admits that due
to budget cuts enacted under the administration of President Obama, many of the
federal and state programs upon which these workers rely are now being phased
out. The reality is that both political parties at federal, state and municipal
levels of government are pursuing austerity policies and are responsible for
the deepening social misery being inflicted on the working class as a whole.

The power of Set for Life lies in its drawing on the
real lives of workers. Despite its weaknesses, the film deserves a wide
audience.

*

Obama combines sequester
cuts with demagogy

By Andre Damon
27 August 2014

As the deadline approaches for triggering $85
billion in across-the-board budget cuts, the indications are that the White
House and congressional Republicans intend to allow the so-called “sequester”
to take effect. The crisis over the program of cuts, set to begin on March 1
unless an alternative plan to slash the deficit is reached, is entirely
manufactured, the result of previous deals reached by the Obama administration
and the Republican leadership.

The impact of these cutbacks will be borne overwhelmingly by
working and poor people, with billions slashed from education, anti-poverty
programs, health care and other vital services. Once enacted, these cuts will
never be fully restored. In effect, a new baseline will have been established for
the ongoing onslaught on social programs upon which millions of working people
depend.

Behind the stage-managed partisan bickering,
there is a tacit consensus between the two parties that the cuts in domestic
discretionary spending, estimated to reach $1.2 trillion over the next decade,
can be used to create more favorable conditions for bullying the public into
accepting immensely unpopular cuts in the basic social programs remaining from
the reforms of the 1930s and 1960s—Medicare and Social Security.

The unstated agenda behind the demagogy of Obama and the
Republicans is to deliberately create a crisis atmosphere and inflict painful
cuts in order to claim, weeks or months down the road, that the only way out is
a longer-term assault on the basic social “entitlement” programs.

The sequester cuts will have harsh consequences
for working people, including:

* A loss of federal education funding affecting
1.2 million students and resulting in the possible layoff of 30,000 teachers
and education staff, plus a $598 million cut in funding for special education
programs.

* The removal of between 600,000 and 775,000
low-income women and children from the WIC food assistance program.

* A cut in federal housing assistance that will
deprive up to 125,000 families of aid.

* Unpaid furloughs of up to 15 days of meat and
poultry inspectors at the Agriculture Department, resulting in $10 billion in
production losses.

* The closure of as many as 100 air traffic
control towers and furlough of controllers, resulting in widening flight
delays.

On Sunday, the White House released reports on
the potential impact of the sequester on all 50 states and Washington DC. California,
for instance, “will lose approximately $87.6 million in funding for primary and
secondary education, putting around 1,210 teacher and aide jobs at risk.”

The pre-school Head Start program will be cut
for 8,200 California children, $2.6 million will be cut from public health, and
the state will lose $5.4 million in funding for food assistance for low-income
families.

Depending on the federal agency, the cuts will
amount to between 5 and 9 percent of the budget for the year.

These cutbacks will have a severe impact on the US economy as a
whole. Stephen S. Fuller, a professor at George Mason University, found in a
study last year that the sequester will cost 2.14 million jobs and increase the
unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points.

The sequester also includes $42.7 billion in
cuts to military spending. The Pentagon has threatened to furlough 800,000
civilian Defense Department employees, beginning as early as April.

The slated military cuts have prompted howls of
protest from the military brass and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who claim
that they will “hollow out” the US military machine and threaten “national
security.” One way or another, the Pentagon, whose base budget has soared since
9/11 from $397 billion to $557 billion, will be shielded from any significant
cuts.

At the same time, the proposed cuts in defense
and security spending will be used for fear-mongering propaganda about the
terrorist threat. Already on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano called a press conference to declare that the cuts will make the US
more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

President Obama is continuing his demagogic
campaign to place the entire blame for the sequester on the Republicans and
posture as the advocate of a “fair” and “balanced” program of deficit-reduction
that will “protect the middle class” and make the rich pay their “fair share.”

On Tuesday, he made an appearance at the Newport
News shipyard in Virginia, a facility that is directly tied into the military
and dependent on contracts from major defense contractors. In selecting this
site for his latest speech on the sequester, Obama, speaking in front of a
giant submarine propeller, signaled his opposition to any significant cuts in
military spending.

He blamed congressional Republicans for blocking
his proposal for a combination of spending cuts and token increases in taxes
for corporations and the wealthy. The Republicans are insisting that there be
no tax increases in any new budget deal.

“All we’re asking,” Obama declared, “is that
they close loopholes for… hedge fund managers and oil companies... so we can
avoid laying off workers, or kicking kids off Head Start, or reducing financial
aid for college students.” The cynicism of this claim to be fighting for higher
taxes for the rich is exposed by Obama’s support for a “comprehensive tax
reform” that includes a cut in corporate taxes from 35 to 28 percent.

The real substance of Obama’s agenda, behind the pseudo-populist
rhetoric, was indicated by his reiteration of support for cuts in entitlement
programs. In a line meant to reassure his real constituency—Wall Street and
corporate America—he said, “Democrats like me… have said we’re prepared to make
some tough cuts and reforms, including to programs like Medicare.”

*

A FEW BASIC FACTS ABOUT OBAMA:

“Behind the thin rhetoric about reigniting a
“thriving middle class,” Obama made clear that the administration’s policies in
its second term will be subordinated entirely to the interests of big business,
beginning with plans to slash hundreds of billions more from health care
programs.”

“In concluding
the pittance of a settlement, a fraction of the billions taken in by the banks
from the sub-prime mortgage racket, the Obama administration is once again
letting the banks get away with massive crimes that have had devastating social
consequences, while giving them a green light to continue similar practices.”

Another sweetheart bank settlement on mortgage
fraud

By Andre Damon
9 January 2013

Ten major financial firms agreed on Monday to pay $3.3 billion in
cash to settle allegations of mortgage fraud by the Office of the Comptroller
of the Currency (OCC) in the latest in a string of sweetheart settlements
between the major Wall Street banks and their nominal regulators. As usual,
there were no criminal charges and no bank officials were held accountable.

The settlement, which nominally totals $8.5 billion, includes $3.3
billion in direct payments to borrowers and $5.2 billion in loan modifications
and other forms of “borrower assistance” left largely at the discretion of the
banks.

The settlement with the OCC, a branch of the Treasury Department,
relates to widespread fraud committed by the banks in their rush to foreclose
on as many homes as possible in 2009 and 2010. To expedite the foreclosure
process, the banks had employees or contractors sign off on thousands of
mortgage documents every month, swearing that they had intimate knowledge of
their contents when in reality they had not even read them.

In many cases,
banks illegally imposed fees on targeted homeowners or failed to inform them of
their rights.

In concluding the
pittance of a settlement, a fraction of the billions taken in by the banks from
the sub-prime mortgage racket, the Obama administration is once again letting
the banks get away with massive crimes that have had devastating social
consequences, while giving them a green light to continue similar practices.

In all the
scandals relating to the banks’ criminality in the run-up to and aftermath of
the 2008 financial crisis, the government has deliberately avoided bringing
cases to trial. This is not only to protect the banks’ activities from further
public scrutiny, but also to cover up regulators’ complicity in facilitating
the banks’ illegal activities.

Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are
employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG
($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).

Consider the Obama administration's choices for the four
most important positions in financial sector law enforcement. The attorney
general (Eric Holder) and the head of the Justice Department's criminal
division (Lanny Breuer) both come to us from Covington & Burling,
a law firm that represents and lobbies for most of the major banks and their
industry associations; indeed Breuer was co-head of its white collar criminal
defense practice, and represented the Moody's rating agency in the Enron case.
Mary Schapiro, the head of the SEC, spent the housing bubble in charge of
FINRA, the investment banking industry's "self-regulator," which gave
her a $9 million severance
for a job well done. And her head of enforcement, perhaps most stunningly of
all, is Robert Khuzami, who was general counsel for Deutsche
Bank's North American business during the entire bubble. So zero prosecutions
isn't much of a surprise, really.

Banking Is a Criminal Industry
Because Its Crimes Go Unpunished

07/16/2012

Consider
just this month's news in financial services.

First,
Barclay's has been manipulating the Libor, the main interest rate upon which
most other interest rates and financial transactions are based, since 2005.
Moreover, Barclay's traders were colluding with traders in many other banks to
assist them in manipulating the Libor too, so that they could all profit from
their bets on it.

Second,
JP Morgan Chase is having a really great month. Recent reports describe how it
is resisting
Federal subpoenas related to price-fixing in U.S. electricity markets. It is
also accused (by former employees among others) of deliberately inflating the
performance of its investment funds to obtain business. And finally, JP
Morgan's failed "London whale" trade, which has now cost over $5 billion, is being
investigated to determine whether the loss was initially concealed from
regulators and the public.

Third,
HSBC is paying
a fine because it allowed hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of dollars of
money laundering by rogue states and sanctioned firms, including some related
to terrorist activities and Iran's nuclear efforts. But HSBC is only one of at
least 12 banks now known to have tolerated, and in some cases aggressively
courted, money laundering by rogue states, terrorist organizations, corrupt
dictators, and major drug cartels over the last decade. Others include
Barclay's, Lloyds, Credit Suisse, and Wachovia (now part of Wells Fargo).
Several of the banks created special handbooks on how to evade surveillance,
created special business units to handle money laundering, and actively
suppressed whistleblowers who warned of drug cartel activities.

Fourth,
a new private lawsuit cites documents
indicating that Morgan Stanley successfully pressured rating agencies into
inflating the ratings of mortgage-backed securities it issued during the
housing bubble.

Fifth,
Visa and Mastercard have just agreed to pay $7 billion to settle a private antitrust case filed by
thousands of merchants, who alleged that Visa and Mastercard colluded to fix
fees and terms of service.

Just
another month in financial services. Is it unusual? No, it's not. If we go back
just a little further, we have UBS, HSBC, Julius Baer, and other banks actively
marketing tax evasion services to wealthy U.S. and European citizens. We have
senior executives of several banks (including JP Morgan Chase and UBS) strongly
suspecting that Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme, but deciding to make
money from him rather than turn him in. And then, of course, we have the
financial crisis and everything that led to it. As I show in great detail in my
book Predator Nation, we now possess overwhelming evidence of massive securities
fraud, accounting fraud, perjury, and criminal Sarbanes-Oxley violations by
mortgage lenders, investment banks, and credit insurers (including senior
executives of Countrywide, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bear
Stearns, AIG, and Lehman Brothers) during the housing bubble that caused the
financial crisis. If we go back to the late 1990s, we have the massively
fraudulent hyping of Internet stocks, and several banks (including Merrill
Lynch and Citigroup) actively aiding Enron in committing its frauds.

So,
July 2012 really isn't abnormal at all. The reason for this is very simple.
Over the past two decades, the financial services industry has become a
pervasively unethical and highly criminal industry, with massive fraud
tolerated or even encouraged by senior management. But how did that happen?

Well,
deregulation helped, of course. But something else was far more important. It
is the one critical factor that unites all of the episodes cited above,
including those of this month. This critical unifying factor is the total
number of criminal prosecutions of major firms and senior executives as a
result of all of these crimes combined.

And
what is that number?

Zero.

Literally
zero. A number that neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney shows the slightest
interest in changing.

Consider
the Obama administration's choices for the four most important positions in
financial sector law enforcement. The attorney general (Eric Holder) and the
head of the Justice Department's criminal division (Lanny Breuer) both come to
us from Covington & Burling, a law firm that represents
and lobbies for most of the major banks and their industry associations; indeed
Breuer was co-head of its white collar criminal defense practice, and
represented the Moody's rating agency in the Enron case. Mary Schapiro, the
head of the SEC, spent the housing bubble in charge of FINRA, the investment
banking industry's "self-regulator," which gave her a $9 million severance for a job well done. And her head
of enforcement, perhaps most stunningly of all, is Robert Khuzami,
who was general counsel for Deutsche Bank's North American business during the
entire bubble. So zero prosecutions isn't much of a surprise, really.

In
contrast, what do you think would happen to you if, as a lone individual, you
were caught supporting Iran's nuclear program? Do you think that you would get
off with a "deferred prosecution agreement" and a fine equal to a few
percent of your annual salary? No?

But
that's because you don't live right. You probably haven't been to the White
House a dozen times since President Obama took office, or attended White House
state dinners, like Lloyd Blankfein has. Nor have you probably overseen
millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign donations, or hired senior
administration officials, or sent your executives into the government in senior
regulatory positions, or paid $135,000 for a speech by someone who later became
chairman of the National Economic Council. And, well, you get the law
enforcement that you pay for.

Surprise, surprise; Census Bureau data reveals that most U.S.
families headed by illegal immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare programs on
behalf of their American-born anchor babies. Even before the recession,
immigrant households with children used welfare programs at consistently higher
rates than natives, according to the extensive census data collected and
analyzed by a nonpartisan Washington D.C. group dedicated to researching legal
and illegal immigration in the U.S. The results, published this month in a
lengthy report,
are hardly surprising. Basically, the majority of households across the country
benefitting from publicly-funded welfare programs are headed by immigrants,
both legal and illegal.

*

WSWS.ORG

The
US is the most unequal of all industrialized countries. Yet for three decades,
as the wealth of the financial aristocracy has soared and the living conditions
of masses of working people have deteriorated, every struggle of the working
class has been isolated and defeated. In this, the official trade unions have
played the central role.

Proving that President Obama is the first choice of Wall Street and the
American super-rich, his reelection campaign announced Wednesday that it had
broken all previous records for fundraising, raking in $86 million during the
second quarter of this year.

WHO IN THE OBAMA ADMIN IS NOT CONNECTED TO HIS CRIMINAL
BANKSTER DONORS, OR A LA RAZA SUPREMACIST PARTY MEMBER?

OBAMA HAS TWO AGENDAS.
SERVICING BANKSTER DONORS, AND PUSHING OUR BORDERS OPEN FOR MORE ILLEGALS. HE
KNOW WE WON’T BE PUNKED BY HIS PERFORMANCES THE SECOND TIME AROUND!

*

“Records show that four out
of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants -
Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and
Citigroup ($358,054).”

*

BOOK

Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is
Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and
Union Bosses

BY
TIMOTHY P CARNEY

Editorial
Reviews

Obama Is
Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the
same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are
profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers,
small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter
Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White
House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering
corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate
America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.

Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and
free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg,
columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative
muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the
federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and
healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes
it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every
time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are
friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.